University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.
Am J Speech Lang Pathol. 2022 Jan 18;31(1):12-29. doi: 10.1044/2021_AJSLP-20-00283. Epub 2021 Jun 17.
This study evaluated the effects of a linguistic characteristic, typicality, and a processing variable, working memory on the abilities of people with aphasia (PWA) and neurologically intact adults to process semantic representations. This was accomplished using a newly developed assessment task, the Category Typicality Test, which was created for the Temple Assessment of Language and Short-Term Memory in Aphasia.
A post hoc quasi-experimental design was used. Participants included 27 PWA and 14 neurologically intact adults who completed the picture and word versions of the Category Typicality Test, which required them to determine if two items are in the same category. Memory load was altered by increasing the number of items to be compared, and the typicality of items was altered to increase linguistic complexity.
A four-way mixed analysis of covariance was conducted. There was a significant interaction between working memory load and category typicality with performance accuracy decreasing as working memory load increased and category typicality decreased. There was also a significant interaction for typicality and stimuli with better performance in the picture condition and a significant interaction for working memory and group with lower performance accuracy for PWA. Post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed differences between memory load, typicality, stimuli conditions, and group. PWA also showed greater magnitude of change than neurologically intact adults when comparing high and low working memory load conditions, but not typicality conditions.
Increasing working memory load had the most substantial impact on the accuracy of category judgments in PWA, but the interaction between increased working memory load and decreased category typicality of items to be compared resulted in reduced accuracy in both groups. These findings suggest that manipulation of processing and linguistic variables in assessment will provide insight into the nature of linguistic breakdown in aphasia. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14781996.
本研究评估了语言特征典型性和加工变量工作记忆对失语症患者（PWA）和神经正常成年人处理语义表征能力的影响。这是通过使用新开发的评估任务，即类别典型性测试来实现的，该测试是为 Temple 评估语言和失语症中的短期记忆而创建的。
采用事后准实验设计。参与者包括 27 名 PWA 和 14 名神经正常成年人，他们完成了图片和单词版本的类别典型性测试，需要他们确定两个项目是否属于同一类别。通过增加要比较的项目数量来改变记忆负荷，通过增加项目的典型性来增加语言复杂性。
进行了四项混合协方差分析。工作记忆负荷和类别典型性之间存在显著交互作用，随着工作记忆负荷的增加和类别典型性的降低，表现准确性下降。对于典型性和刺激物也存在显著交互作用，图片条件下表现更好，对于工作记忆和组也存在显著交互作用，PWA 的表现准确性较低。事后成对比较显示了记忆负荷、典型性、刺激条件和组之间的差异。PWA 在比较高和低工作记忆负荷条件时，与神经正常成年人相比，变化幅度更大，但在典型性条件下并非如此。
增加工作记忆负荷对 PWA 类别判断的准确性影响最大，但增加工作记忆负荷和降低要比较的项目的类别典型性之间的相互作用导致两组的准确性都降低。这些发现表明，在评估中对加工和语言变量的操纵将深入了解失语症中的语言破坏的本质。
